Physiological and Social Stress on Cognitive Performance

Humans are highly social creatures and this provides us with a number of benefits, such as protection and support, but it also brings new avenues for stress from social sources. Basic and translational neuroendocrine research has yielded a rich set of findings and a general understanding of how acute and chronic stress can result in reduced health, earlier aging, and earlier death. Although stress can be indexed by level of cortisol, the major stress hormone in humans, many interrelated physiological systems are involved in a stress response, including the cardio and vascular systems. Research toward greater understanding of stress buffering mechanisms holds value for improved human health in the face of entrenched social stressors. In particular, acute and chronic stress have consistently been found to impair cognitive performance, Many adults in high stress environments also face a changing social landscape during college years: changes in living partners, less control over noise, sleep, exercise, and nutrition. In this pilot investigation, we are interested in measuring the influences of acute stress on cognitive performance and whether social support, a factor that is modifiable, would be protective on the multi-systems relationships between stress and cognition. Broadly, we found (1) that higher levels of cortisol measured in saliva was associated with a faster return to resting levels of salivary cortisol (a measure of flexible, adaptive functioning of the central HPA stress system) after the stressor is removed and may also be associated with lower cortisol in the initial response to the stressor. In parallel, we found (2) that higher levels of cortisol were associated with impaired cognitive performance after the stress task, (3) finally, we found that those reporting high social support showed faster recovery to baseline in the cardiovascular systems and greater social support produced some buffering of stress response on their post-stress cognitive performance

Analyzing Intracellular Short Linear Motifs of AMIGO and NGL Orthologs

LIGs are transmembrane proteins, containing a leucine-rich repeat (LRR) and immunoglobulin-like (Ig) domain, important in cell interactions and signaling. There are 36 human LIG proteins, of which the AMIGO and NGL subfamilies have sizable intracellular domains of which minimal functional knowledge has been obtained. Within intracellular regions, short linear motifs (SLiMs) that function as targeting signals, modification sites, and protein binding sites may exist. Identification of motifs conserved across different species provides a phylogenetic approach to aid in discovery of functional SLiMs. In this study, orthologs of AMIGO and NGL human proteins were identified in Mus musculus (mouse), Gallus gallus (chicken), Callorhinchus milii (elephant shark) and used to identify putative SLiMs

Improving Leadership and Occupational Skills of Underprivileged Teenagers in the Youth Leadership Development Programs in the Kumphawapi District of Udon Thani, Thailand

The Raks Thai Foundation’s Youth Leadership Development (YLD) program instills leadership and occupational skills in underprivileged teenagers in the Kumphawapi District of Udon Thani, Thailand, however it has not fully developed. Our goal was to enhance the presence of these skills by evaluating teaching resources and marketing channels for local schools participating in the program. We interviewed teachers, guardians, students, customers, and vendors to create a program guide, which provides basic business concepts and activities to teach students skills they need to thrive in Udon Thani